After the alarming rise in cases in early July, peaking on July 15th with 60,681 positive tests (by specimen date), and the equally rapid drop over the next week, we've now spent the last two weeks bouncing along with new cases ranging between 20,103 and 31,588 per day. It might be going up a bit, it might not - we'll only see that in retrospect.
Deaths are at a 7-day average of 80-something (exact figure depending on which stats you look at). I guess this'll come down a bit as we get further from that peak and then stabilise at bit more in line with the recent case numbers.
Hospital admissions have come down a bit and I guess they'll now hold steady-ish too as long as case numbers remain fairly constant.
I have no idea where this is going. Cases might trend up, or hold steady, or trend down. The end of school holidays or the arrival of colder autumn weather might see cases take off again. Further vaccinations might see cases go down. We're in uncharted territory. And that's without the risk of new variants.
Going out there's a complete mix of reactions depending where you are and what you're doing and who you're with. There's people still going out in full PPE (there's one older lady I see near me who's been dressed in what looks like a home made NBC suit everytime I've seen her since last March), there's people who pay no heed to any precautions at all. Some places I've been I'm the only person wearing a mask, others are 100% fully masked. Some places still require loads of safety measures, some barely pay lip service to it.
The vaccine programme has been an amazing success, but we seem to be in a kind of nowhere land at the moment where it's okay in comparison to last spring or late last year/earlier this year, but bad compared to the old normal.
The government's view seems to be: we've given you vaccines, now get on with life and get used to this new normal. They've obviously decided hospitals won't collapse under the weight of numbers and they won't be bothered by CRISIS! headlines in the news, but I can't help feeling the current situation is all a bit: